About this item
An authoritative and, at times, frightening investigation into the dark side of North Korean society. North Korea is like no other tyranny on earth. Its citizens are told their home is the greatest nation on earth. Big Brother is always watching: It is Orwell's 1984 made reality. Award-winning BBC journalist John Sweeney is one of the few foreign journalists to have witnessed the devastating reality of life in the controversial and isolated nation of North Korea, having entered the country undercover, posing as a university professor with a group of students from the London School of Economics. Huge factories with no staff or electricity; hospitals with no patients; uniformed child soldiers; and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ -- the DeMilitarized Zone, where North Korea ends and South Korea begins -- all framed by the relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers.
About the Author
John Sweeney is an award-winning journalist and author, currently working as an investigative journalist for the BBC's Panorama series. Before joining the BBC in 2001, Sweeney worked for twelve years at The Observer, where he covered wars and revolutions in more than sixty countries including Romania, Algeria, Iraq, Chechnya, Burundi and Bosnia. In 1996, He was sued for criminal defamation in France by the Barclay brothers, owners of the Daily Telegraph, but the claimants lost their case. At the time, Sweeney worked for the rival newspaper The Observer, and had given an interview on BBC Radio Guernsey alleging that they had been involved in corruption. Since the broadcast could also be heard in northern France, the claimants were able to bring their claim in the French courts. Sweeney was ordered to pay €3000 by the appeal court in Rennes, FranceSweeney spent four years investigating the cases of Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, three women who had been falsely imprisoned for killing their children. Sweeney's investigation helped to clear their names, and led to Sir Roy Meadow, the expert witness whose testimony had proved decisive in their convictions, being temporarily struck off the General Medical Council's medical register. Sweeney received the Paul Foot Award in 2005 in recognition of his work. He has won several awards throughout his career, including:1998: What the Papers Say Journalist of the Year prize for reports on human rights abuses in Algeria. 2000: an Emmy Award and a Royal Television Society prize for programs about the Massacre at Krusha e Madhe, Kosovo. 2001: the Amnesty International prize for "Victims of the Torture Train," about human rights abuses in Chechnya. 2003: a Sony Gold award (2003) for Best Radio News program. 2004: a Royal Television Society prize (2004) for "Angela's Hope," a BBC One documentary about a woman wrongly convicted of murdering her three babies. 2005: The Paul Foot Award. "Scientology and Me", a Panorama investigation into Scientology written and presented by Sweeney, was aired on BBC One on Monday, 14 May 2007. Prior to its airing,video footage filmed by the Church of Scientology was released that showed Sweeney shouting at Scientology representative Tommy Davis during a visit to CCHR's "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death". The clips were sections of a documentary the Church of Scientology's Freedom Magazine TV produced about the BBC Panorama programme. Sweeney remarked that he lost his temper due to days of harassment by Davis and the Church, and a strong personal reaction to the psychiatry exhibit. He had been visited at his hotel by Davis, despite not having shared the address with the Church, and had been followed on several different occasions. Sweeney labelled the clips "attack videos" and others say they were produced to discredit himself and the documentary. The BBC in response aired its own fu
